Lord Justice Leveson, an appeal judge and chairman of the Sentencing Council, called into question the “century old” identification process, which he said was often considered “virtually unassailable” in tying a person to a crime.

The judge said that there have been “numerous” recent cases of innocent people being wrongly singled out by fingerprint evidence.

In a speech to the Forensic Science Society in London, he said the analysis of fingerprints by experts was “fundamentally subjective” and that it was therefore “inherently capable of misidentifications”.

Lord Justice Leveson called for new research to be carried out to ensure fingerprinting is “robust” and reliable.

“There is growing unease among fingerprint examiners and researchers that the century old fingerprint identification process rests on assumptions that have never been tested empirically,” he said.

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Speaking about the use of expert evidence in court cases, the senior judge said it was vital to have a “methodology and a hypothesis that are capable of withstanding robust testing”.

“Arguably, as it currently stands, the science of fingerprint identification does not,” he added.

The judge is the most senior member of the judiciary to speak out about the concerns, which have been raised by experts and academics for the past few years.

However it is unlikely to lead to a series of convicted criminals appealing their cases because in most instances where fingerprints are now used in court, the evidence is corroborated by other forensic samples such as DNA testing.

However examples of failings include Brandon Mayfield, who in 2004 was wrongly linked to the Madrid train bombings by FBI fingerprint experts in the United States.

Shirley McKie, a Scottish police officer, was wrongly accused of having been at a murder scene in 1997 after a print supposedly matching hers was found near the body.

Criminal fingerprinting techniques were pioneered at Scotland Yard at the beginning of the 20th century. The first successful conviction using them was of Harry Jackson, a burglar who was jailed in 1902.

No two fingerprints are ever exactly alike in every detail – even two impressions recorded immediately after each other from the same hand.

It requires an expert examiner to determine whether a print taken from a crime scene and one taken from a subject are likely to have originated from the same finger.

Unlike other forensic fields, such as DNA analysis, which give a statistical probability of a match, fingerprint examiners traditionally testify that the evidence constitutes either a 100 per cent certain match or a 100 per cent exclusion.

Lord Justice Leveson said: “The language of certainty that examiners are forced to use hides a great deal of uncertainty, which greatly undermines the examiners’ legitimacy.”

A recent study found that experts do not always make the same judgment on whether a print matches a mark at a crime scene, when presented with the same evidence twice.

Six examiners in several countries were given eight sets of prints to compare on two different occasions, without knowing it was past of a study. They changed their decision in six cases and only two of the experts were consistent with their previous decision.

The research, carried out at Southampton University, found they were more likely to change their decision if given contextual information, such as "the suspect has confessed", that conflicted with their previous judgment.